Martin William Harrison

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The Respondent, admitted 1984, acted for Ms H in a property sale and directed the deposit (£7,650) and completion monies (£68,850) into his own private bank account, using the funds for his own purposes before repaying Ms H via a £78,000 secured loan plus £1,500 compensation. He also transferred £9,000 of client funds belonging to Mr G to his private account for personal expenses. The Tribunal found all seven allegations proved, including express findings of dishonesty regarding Ms H's funds under the Twinsectra test. The Respondent did not attend but admitted allegations 1, 2, 4 and 6 while disputing dishonesty. He was struck off the Roll and ordered to pay costs of £12,500.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Abused trust placed in him by clients
• Deprived clients of use of their money
• Gave instructions to purchaser's solicitors to pay funds into own private account (by design)
• Brought the profession into disrepute
• Failed to respond to SRA correspondence

Mitigating factors:

• Repaid clients including £1,500 compensation and interest to Ms H